Lindon limped home, cradling his broken arm. He grinned, happy despite his injuries. In his pack lay the spoils of his labours: a fruit harvested from an ancestral orus tree. It was said that a single bite of the fruit would infuse you with years of purified vital aura, allowing a sacred artist to skip precious years of cycling. This was his chance to finally move forward after failing to advance for years.

As Lindon returned to the Wei clan's lands, he felt the pricks of stares on his sides. He quickly glanced upwards, catching a small group of Foundation children staring. However, it wasn't the looks from the young that caught his attention. The Foundation students' cultivation instructor stood nearby with contempt in his eyes. Lindon sighed; the wood badge on his chest lay heavy, a symbol of his shame. It was a common sentiment of the older generation that at fifteen and Unsouled, he was a blemish on the clan's reputation.

Lindon's arm throbbed, pulling his attention back inward. He shook his head and continued trudging back home.

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Lindon stumbled through the door, collapsing onto his bed. He glanced around at his home while waiting for his family to arrive. It was a small but cozy affair. His home had only one room, eight strides wide and ten deep, however that was more than enough for Lindon's earthly possessions. A bed sat in one corner and his personal library (a meager five scrolls) on a shelf in the opposite. In the center of the room sat a low table on which laid his pack containing the orus fruit.

His thoughts were interrupted as he heard voices approaching.

"What happened?!" exclaimed Kelsa, eyes wide, as she walked through the door. She was followed momentarily by Jaran and Seisha, his father and mother.

"I sent you to find a tree, not fight a war" frowned Seisha. 

Jaran crossed his arms, displeasure apparent on his face.

"Explain" said Jaran simply, sitting down around the table with Kelsa and Seisha.

Lindon bowed his head, "My apologies for worrying you. As you know, mother sent me to search out an ancestral orus tree..."

As Lindon told his story, Kelsa sat attentive while Jaran maintained a stern expression and Seisha turned her eyes back to a tablet in her hands.

After a moment of silence as Lindon finished his tale, Jaran sighed and leaned back as far as his crippled body would allow him.

"You know what this means, yes? You're to be punished by the Elders if they learn of this," said Jaran.

Lindon frowned slightly as he nodded. His transgression was simple, he had interrupted and stood in the way of three Coppers. Despite their hunt for the snowfox being against the clan rules, he had erred by hindering them. That was the fate of an Unsouled; his very existence was akin to a crime.

"That being said, this will bring ridicule to the Wei Mon family. A Copper running and leaving an Unsouled to fend for himself? How disgraceful," Jaran sneered and shook his head.

His scarred lips turned up into a slight smirk as he proudly remarked, "Despite that, you fought a remnant and lived to tell the tale. Maybe all the training we've put into you hasn't been a total waste."

A faint smile peaked through Lindon's normally stoic expression as he accepted his father's backhand compliment.

Seisha looked up from her tablet and returned his faint smile, "We're proud of you Lindon." She shifted slightly and leaned forward, "So you found the tree, were there any fruit?"

Lindon gestured to the pack on the table. Seisha reached inside and pulled out both the whithered physical fruit and its pure white madra counterpart. Her drudge, a small brown contraption hovering over her left shoulder, floated over to the pair of fruits and surveyed them, interspersing the silence with rapid clicking noises. Shesha nodded then, with a look of concentration on her face, drew out a string of purple and white madra from her hands. Using the madra string, she strung both fruits together. After a brief moment, with a shimmer they melded together. What remained behind was as Lindon remembered before the tree was felled by Teris: a wizened white fruit sitting innocuously on the table, thrumming with the promise of power.

"If I was younger..." began Jaran wistfully before shaking his head. "No, we should give it to Kelsa. The Seven Year Festival is only a few months away and she needs every advantage we can give her to bring the family honor."

"If either of us were to reach Jade, we would be the Shi family's first Jades in five generations," Seisha noted.

They turned and looked at Kelsa, waiting for her input.

"I'm nearing the cusp of Copper. With the fruit, I should be able to hit Iron before the festival," informed Kelsa.

"Perhaps we split it in three?" Seisha suggested, setting down her tablet.

Lindon wrinkled his brow and interjected, "With all due respect, it was my blood and my sweat that brought back this fruit. Would it really hurt to split it in four and share a small piece with me?" He carefully shifted in his bed, avoiding his broken arm, to bring himself closer to the conversation.

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Seisha turned in askance to her drudge. After a brief unspoken exchange, Seisha turned back. "Three shares is the absolute limit of dividing the fruit, any more and it will become unstable. My binding maintaining the physical and remnant halves unravel and the fruit will be wasted for us all." She turned to look at Lindon. "You found the fruit on my instruction, did you forget?"

"I'm sorry Lindon, I know it isn't fair but it's for the good of the family. My advancement to Iron before the Seven-Year Festival and potentially our first new Jade in generations will be huge boons to our standing within the Wei clan," Kelsa apologized with a sad expression on her face.

Jaran nodded in approval, "Even if it allowed you to advance to Copper, what honor does having the latest advancing Foundation-level sacred artist within whole of the Wei clan bring the Shi family?"

Kelsa avoided Lindon's eyes as he took in their words. His family's responses were like a blow to his stomach but the worst part was that he couldn't find fault in their reasoning. There was no benefit in giving him a share. The clan's mantra was to support the strong as they were the pillars the clan rested upon.

Lindon clenched his sheets with the fist of his uninjured arm as tears formed in his eyes. He blinked quickly, trying to clear them. He felt numb. It just wasn't fair. He had finally earned a chance to escape from his fate as an Unsouled, paid in his own sweat and blood, and it was going to be ripped from his grasp to be given to someone else.

Seisha's eyes softened as she noticed Lindon's plight. "I'm truly sorry son but we must do what's best for the family..."

"Once I advance to Iron I can pass on some of the elixirs I'm given to you brother," offered Kelsa. "It's the least I can do."

Lindon set his face and nodded, "You're too kind sister."

Seisha turned back to the fruit and took it in her hands. Her drudge floated down and with a strange inward twist, conjured up a knife from seemingly nowhere. She took the knife and, with the practiced ease of a Soulsmith, sliced the orus fruit into three pieces.

Lindon leaned back against the wall feeling numb as his family ate the fruit. His opportunity to finally slip the chains of worthlessness disappeared right in front of his eyes.

A voice from the door broke him out of his stupor, "Greetings honored Shi family. The First Elder requests the presence of Wei Shi Lindon."

The man at the door bowed as he addressed the Shi family.

"Lindon is injured, surely this can wait," began Kelsa before Lindon interjected.

"No, it's fine. I’ll head over now. Better to get this over with," said Lindon as he slowly got up from the bed, being careful not to disturb his broken arm.

Lindon limped past his family, following the man out the door to meet with the First Elder.

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Tall was not an adequate word to describe the tower. It was like a tree in a field of grass, dwarfing everything around it. On some days, it even appeared to scrape the clouds, giving the illusion that it climbed forever into the heavens. The tower still looked exactly as it had the day it was built, each pure white brick inscribed with scripts whose meanings were long lost. Despite its immense proportions, the contents were quite simple: a reception at the bottom, a long flight of stairs, and a sealed chamber at the top. It was an awe inspiring sight.

It was also the prison of Elder Whisper.

Lindon's gaze traced the tower from the base to its apex, taking in the task in front of him. The meeting with the First Elder had gone exactly as Jaran had predicted: both Teris and Lindon had been punished, Teris for his cowardice and Lindon for simply being in a Copper's way. Thankfully the magnitude of the punishments were far different. Teris was to be whipped in front of the clan while Lindon was only relegated to feeding Elder Whisper.

For the majority of the clan, bringing Elder Whisper a meal was not worthy the title of a punishment. The tower was designed with sacred artists in mind as near every inhabitant of the valley was a practitioner.  For an Unsouled, the task of climbing thousands of stairs with burdened with a heavy bucket of freshly caught jade-scaled river carp was long and arduous.

Lindon was brought back to reality by a cough. He turned towards the noise and bowed.

"My apologies brother Gen."

At the base of the tower, a tiny structure was found to the right of the entrance. It was clearly not part of the tower, sharing the same designs as the rest of the clan housing. In its doorway stood Wei Jing Gen. The Jing family could be traced back as the tower's minders for many generations. Gen, the current head of the family, was at the cusp of Jade and likely advance within the next year. He was a tall and severe man, taking his responsibilities as the tower's keeper extremely seriously.

Gen gave Lindon a hard look before nodding and gesturing for Lindon to come to him. Lindon approached and bowed once again.

"This one has been tasked by the First Elder to bring Elder Whisper his evening meal."

A man of few words, Gen nodded once again. He turned and disappeared into the hut for a short moment before returning with an iron bucket filled with emerald colored fish in one hand and a heavy looking bronze key in the other. Gen continued on to the entrance of the tower and set the bucket down, turning to Lindon.

"Today's phrase is 'Mount Saivon'. Remember it," intoned Gen before turning his attention to the door.

Gen inserted the key into an ornate lock decorating the door and turned it with a heavy clunk. He pushed open the door and stood to the side, waiting for Lindon to enter.

Lindon bowed to Gen one last time before bending down to grab the bucket while being careful to not disturb his injured arm. He winced as he lifted it; while not exactly heavy, it  was not as light as Gen made it appear with his Iron body.

He stepped past Gen through the open doorway into the tower. Before Lindon could take in his surroundings, he heard the door shut behind him and the lock click. The tower contained two scripted circles, one at the base and one at the top. This two layered set of seals was meant to allow members of the Wei clan to enter Elder Whisper's sanctum without setting the fox free. The pass phrase was to ensure that the door was only re-opened for the same sacred artist that entered. If it was forgotten, a Jade would have to be summoned to verify the sacred artist's identity using their ability to sense madra. Why Elder Whisper was essentially a prisoner of the Wei clan, Lindon did not know. He doubted there was anyone left in the clan with that knowledge. Even how long Elder Whisper had been in the tower was unknown. Was it created to hold him or was it repurposed after its original use had past? He shook his head to clear his mind for the task in front of him.

The inside of the tower was simple: a circular column with stairs wrapping around it. Both were comprised of the same white material as the tower's outer walls. The staircase was quite steep, designed for sacred artists. Lindon grunted, hefting the bucket of fish as he started on his journey up the tower.